


My Hero

by Trammel



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Awesome Peggy Carter, BAMF Peggy Carter, Bullying, Child Abuse, Gen, Howard Stark Hate Network, Peggy Carter - Freeform, Steve is not actually in the story, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, toxic masculinity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-13 00:10:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5686993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trammel/pseuds/Trammel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony usually had nothing but hate for Captain America, but sometimes, sometimes he wished that Captain America would come back to life and save him. Save him from his dad. Like now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Hero

Tony hadn't meant to actually blow up the dorm room. It was just supposed to be a stink bomb. He didn't actually want to hurt anybody. Not really.

Since his dad had dumped him at boarding school more than a year ago, his life had gone from bad to even worse. Tony was younger and smaller than the other boys, which made him an easy target. He was also much smarter than them, which made them hate him even more.

They'd easily moved on from taunts and tripping him to beatings and their new favorite pastime - locking Tony in closed spaces to see how long he would take to escape. When they found that he could get out of a locked janitor's closet in about ten minutes, they had to come up with harder - and scarier - places to lock him in.

The latest was the worst. Three boys, lead by James Dunham, a beefy ten-year old with more muscles than brain matter, grabbed him out of his bed in the middle of the night and before Tony could even catch his breath, he found himself locked in the walk-in freezer in the kitchens in the basement of the school, where nobody would hear him pounding and screaming.

He managed to calm down after a while, but it still took him two hours to construct some makeshift tools from the containers and shelving in the freezer to break into the freezer's electrical system and let himself out.

Tony spent the rest of that night shivering in his bed, clutching the screwdriver he'd made and swearing to himself that if they came near him again he'd get revenge.

So he'd made the stink bomb to ruin everything in Dunham's room. He set it to go off while they were all in class. Nobody'd gotten hurt, but something went wrong and the bomb had caused a small explosion, actually destroying the room. So now Jarvis was driving him back home because he'd been suspended for a week. The headmaster told him that if his father wasn't Howard Stark, he would have been expelled.

They reached Stark Manor and Jarvis had to almost force him out of the car. Jarvis kept a comforting hand on Tony's shoulder as they walked towards his father's study.

"It is best if you apologize."

"But I'm not sorry! He doesn't understand what it's like there!" Tony swallowed hard; he could already feel tears behind his eyes. His dad always made things worse when he cried.

Jarvis's hand squeezed at his shoulder, then Jarvis knocked on the door to the study.

"Sir, I've brought young Mr. Stark home."

Tony recognized the voice that answered immediately. Dad's drunk voice. Actually, he knew that voice better than his father's normal voice, because the drunk voice was usually directed at Tony.

"Get in here, you ungrateful brat!" Tony froze.

"I will be right outside this door," Jarvis whispered. Tony knew that Jarvis often stayed out of things, not because he didn't care, but because otherwise, if Dad got angry at him, fired him, Tony would have nobody.

Tony knew his mother loved him, but she was often in bed with one of her headaches. She seemed so fragile and Tony had long ago stopped trying to get her help. It didn't work. At least he had Jarvis to tend to his wounds and make him hot chocolate when he couldn't sleep at night.

Tony forced himself to open the door and walk into the study. His father turned from where he was standing at his desk, and Tony saw that he was right. Dad had a drink in his hand and his face was already red, not just from anger.

Tony stepped into the room but immediately started backing away from his father.

"Do you have any idea how you made me look? How you embarrassed me!"

"I - I'm sorry, Dad. I'm sorry! It wasn't supposed to blow up! It was supposed to be a stink bomb, but I guess I miscalculated somewhere-"

"Miscalculated? Miscalculated? You're not there to cause trouble, you ungrateful little-" The glass went flying over Tony's head, and he flinched as he heard it smash against the wall behind him.

"I have to take a phone call, in the middle of a very important meeting, to hear that my son has blown up somebody's dorm room?"

"You don't know what he did. He deserved it!" Tony found the nerve to say.

Bad idea. Dad took two steps forward and his hand flew. The force of the slap threw Tony off his feet and he fell backwards, putting out his right hand to try to catch himself, but felt a sharp pain slice through his palm. He found himself on his back on the floor, his left hand holding his burning cheek. He looked at his right hand and saw that he had landed on the broken glass. Blood was dripping from his palm.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!," he shouted, immediately. He held both his hands in front of his face, to protect himself. "Dad, please!" And now the tears were coming. He didn't want to show that he was weak; it would only make his father angrier, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't help crying.

His dad paced angrily back and forth in front of him. His tie was askew and his eyes glassy. Tony knew this was gonna be a bad one.

_You're not there to cause trouble._ Right. His father had sent him away so he wouldn't be a nuisance, to get him out of the way, so he could continue with his precious work and his obsession with Captain America.

Tony usually had nothing but hate for Captain America, but sometimes, sometimes he wished that Captain America would come back to life and save him. Save him from his dad. Like now.

But that wasn't gonna happen. Tony sniffed and tried to crawl backwards as his father loomed over him.

"Stop crying, you baby! Those boys probably target you because you act like such a baby! You have to be a man!"

Tony didn't even know what that meant anymore. Did that mean drinking and beating people up? Because that seemed to be what his father was best at. And staring at Tony like he was staring now. The expression Tony knew by heart. Dad's face full of hate and disgust. At Tony.

Dad reached down and grabbed Tony by the collar of his shirt, pulling him up till he was on his tiptoes. His father kept yelling, but Tony tried to block it out. It was always the same anyway.

There was another noise behind his father's yelling. Outside the door. A woman's voice.

A sharp knock on the door. "Howard?"

Aunt Peggy's voice. Tony let out a whine, he couldn't help it.

"I said, stop crying!" Dad yelled again. Tony just cried harder. It didn't matter what he did. He would never be able to please his father.

There was a loud crash as the door banged open and Aunt Peggy stormed in. Dad turned, shocked, and let go. Tony fell to his knees, cradling his hurt hand against him.

He looked up at his savior. Aunt Peggy was dressed for work in a blue suit with a long skirt, but to Tony she looked like an avenging angel. There was fire in her eyes as she quickly took in the situation.

"Howard, you're drunk. You should go to bed."

"Peggy, get out of here This is none of your business."

Peggy shook her head, then stepped forward and punched Dad right in the jaw, putting all of her strength into it, and sending him flying backwards against his desk.

Tony stared, his eyes wide. Peggy was looking down at Dad as if Dad was the disgusting one. The worthless one. "Don't move," she ordered Howard. And Dad didn't move. He just stared up at her.

"Jarvis?" Peggy called. Instantly Jarvis was there at Tony's side. "Please help Tony. His hand is bleeding."

"Come, young Sir. I'll patch you up." Tony let Jarvis help him up and out of the room. As the door closed behind them, Tony heard Peggy say "-what would Steve think?"

Jarvis bandaged Tony's hand and made him hot chocolate, and when Tony was done drinking it, Peggy came into the kitchen and sat down in front of him. She looked tired and angry, but her voice was kind.

"Tony, would you like to spend the week with me?"

Would he? Tony looked at Jarvis, and Jarvis nodded, meaning it was something that was ok to want. Tony just nodded at Peggy, because he felt like he was gonna cry again, and he really didn't want to cry in front of her.

* * *

Peggy's husband was in bed when they got to her place. But instead of making him go straight to bed, she made a fire in the fireplace, then sat on the sofa and gestured for Tony to sit with her. She reached out to touch his shoulder and he flinched. He couldn't help it. He really was a baby.

But she smiled kindly at him. "Can I give you a hug?"

He nodded and she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close. Somehow, feeling those warm, soft but strong arms around him, he managed to tell her everything. What they did to him and why he'd made the bomb.

"I didn't mean to cause trouble. I didn't."

"I know, Tony." She gently stroked his hair. He felt the warmth of the fire and the safety of her arms and couldn't believe he wasn't dreaming. "But it really isn't a good idea to go around blowing things up."

"I know. But they wouldn't stop. They won't stop." He thought a moment. Thought of how his father looked when Peggy hit him. He was actually scared of her. He'd stopped.

Tony looked up at her. "Will you teach me to fight?"

"Oh, Tony. I can teach you how to defend yourself. You should fight to defend yourself. You shouldn't start fights, if you can help it."

"Jarvis said you're the best fighter he knows. That you used to start a lot of fights."

Peggy laughed. She just kept holding him and stroking his hair. It felt so nice. "When I joined the army, a lot of fellas didn't like that. They tried to bully me too. I had to learn to defend myself."

Tony closed his eyes. He was really tired. His hand burned, but he felt safe with Aunt Peggy. He wished he could get away from his father forever. Run away. No, fly away. One day he was gonna build some wings or something that would let him fly away from everybody.

Well, maybe he'd build a pair of wings for Aunt Peggy too, so she could come visit him, wherever he went.

* * *

It was the best week of Tony's life. Aunt Peggy took a few days off from work and she spent all her time with him. He showed her all the ideas, the inventions he was working on, and she started to show him how to defend himself. She even got Jarvis to help, playing the part of Dunham.

Tony was both proud and sorry when he managed to punch Jarvis right in the gut and make him fall over.

One day Peggy had to go to SHIELD for some meetings, and she took him with her. He didn't want to get in trouble, but there was way too much cool stuff to see there. He broke into Nick Fury's office and got caught by the weird, one-eyed guy. Fury didn't yell like his father, though. He just lectured in a scarily calm voice, and Tony understood that this was a guy who didn't make idle threats.

But when Fury took him back to Peggy's office, he didn't even tell on Tony, just made up something about Tony being lost, which Tony knew Peggy didn't believe for a minute. But she went along with it.

The last night before he was to go back to school, when Peggy took him home, so he could pack up and say goodbye to his mother, Tony found himself lying in his bed, unable to sleep.

He really wanted to do something for Aunt Peggy, for helping him. To let her know how important it was. But what could _he_ give her? After thinking a while, he kept going back to that moment in his father's study. When she'd hit his dad. She'd protected him.

He knew what he had to do.

Tony got up and got dressed, then headed quietly down to his father's workshop.

Tony was an expert at overriding his father's security codes by now, so he easily got into his father's inner sanctum. He hoped that Dad hadn't moved what he was looking for. For a while he knew it had been kept at Stark Industries, but now his Dad liked to keep it near him. So he could talk about the past. Always the past.

Maybe he even prayed to the damn thing.

This was the first time he'd touched it, and it was lighter than he'd expected. He stashed it in a large burlap bag and was almost to the back door when Jarvis found him.

"Can I help you young Sir?"

"I need to give something to Aunt Peggy. I need to."

Jarvis just looked at him for a moment, then his eyes strayed to the bag, widening in shock when he recognized the shape.

"Please, Jarvis. She deserves it."

To his surprise, Jarvis just nodded, and put his arm around Tony.

"We must be very quiet."

Jarvis drove him through the dark, quiet streets, then let Tony go to Peggy's door alone. Tony knocked hesitantly, facing the security camera by the door so she could see it was him. After a moment, the door opened and Aunt Peggy was there, in flannel pajamas and curlers in her graying hair.

She was beautiful.

"Tony, what-?"

"It's ok. Jarvis brought me. He's in the car. I have to give you something." She let him into the front hallway, closing the door.

"What is it, sweetie?"

"I heard you. I heard you ask Dad what Steve would think. You know Steve is all Dad talks about. I think, well, I think that Steve would think you're a hero. That you should have this. Not Dad."

He held out the bag. She also clearly recognized the shape, but took it and reverently pulled out the shield. Captain America's shield. The shield of a hero.

"Cuz- cuz you're my hero," he said, kind of embarrassed at that.

Peggy gently put the shield down, then looked at Tony. He had a lot of practice recognizing hate and anger in people's eyes, not so much with love. But he thought that that's what was in her eyes. Then she knelt down and wrapped him up in her arms, in a warm, tight hug.

Tony hugged her back. And for once, he understood that it was ok to cry.

**Author's Note:**

> So, tumblr seems to agree that Peggy taught Steve to fight. But what if she also taught Tony to fight? ;)
> 
> Maria Stark is kind of absent in my fics, because because I really don't know what to do with her. I don't know much about her in canon, and I have endless rage at parents that stand by and do nothing while the other parent abuses a kid. I think they're just as guilty. So I just don't even go there.


End file.
